SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This study establishes a framework for the description of sentence structure in the e-Saaka dialect of e-Makhuwa (Mozambique) including the structure of units lower on the rank scale (clause, group/phrase, word). The model of description is eclectic, but draws especially on Halliday's Scale and Category approach as represented by Maw 1969 and on Guthrie 1961. The study is based on a corpus of recorded texts, one of which appears with syntactic annotation and translation as an appendix. Introductory chapters deal with the phonology and tonology of the language, the latter having significance for the focusing and nominal predication mechanisms of the language. Successive chapters then deal with the morphology of the nominal and verbal, the structure of the group, clause and sentence. Selectors (demonstratives, Chapter 4) play a special role in the textual delimitation of nominal groups, and reference is made to their links with psycholinguistic encoding units (Chapter 6). Chapter 5 (verbal morphology) includes consideration of the way in which processes of verbal derivation relate to systems of transitivity and aspect; examination of the syntactic slots associated with the transitivity system (Chapter 7) includes a delicate distinction of categories of object. The analysis of verbal conjugation in the same chapter leads to distinction of mood characterising different clause types whose relationships are discussed in Chapter 8. Chapter 7 also includes an examination of the role of the ideophone in clause structure and its relation to the predicate. Recognition of cleft and situative clauses as special structures simplifies their description and annotation. The final chapter on sentence structure also considers relationships between sentences in larger units termed episodes.